IN SCIENCE NEWS THIS WEEK …
Water hyacinth acts like ‘plastic wrap’ on the Delta
“Looking at the water hyacinth’s lovely lavender flowers and lush green leaves, it’s easy to see why it was brought here from South America. But too much of a good thing can cause trouble, and few things turn into “too much” as quickly as water hyacinths (Eichhornia crassipes). Hyacinth plants float on water, where they interlock into dense, sturdy mats. One of the world’s fastest-growing plants, the hyacinth’s mats can double the area they cover in just two weeks. “I’ve seen them cover the entirety of a creek in one season,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Leanna Zweig of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Fish and Wildlife Office. “There was no water surface showing; it looked like you could walk across it. … ”
Continue reading from the US FWS here: Water hyacinth acts like ‘plastic wrap’ on the Delta
Creating a new fishery at Mountain Meadows Reservoir
“Monty Currier’s heart sank when an excited angler told him recently of catching trophy-sized crappie at Mountain Meadows Reservoir in Lassen County. For the past five years, Currier, a California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) environmental scientist assigned to reservoir fisheries in the north state, has been working to rebuild the fishery at Mountain Meadows Reservoir after the Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) impoundment went dry in 2015 from the combined effects of maintenance work and the drought. Crappie were not part of the restoration plan. Currier’s spirits lifted when the angler pulled out his phone. The photos he proudly showed off were not of crappie – but rather of good-sized Sacramento Perch, California’s only native sunfish and the result of CDFW transplants from Biscar Reservoir in Lassen County, Lake Almanor in Plumas County and Clear Lake Reservoir in Modoc County. ... ”
Continue reading from the Department of Fish and Wildlife here: Creating a new fishery at Mountain Meadows Reservoir
Featured CDFW scientist: Ben Ewing
“Ben Ewing is an environmental scientist for CDFW’s North Central Region. Based out of the region headquarters office in Rancho Cordova, Sacramento County, Ben serves as the district fisheries biologist for Alpine, Amador, Calaveras and Lake counties. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, Ben holds a Bachelor’s degree in wildlife management from Humboldt State University. He first joined CDFW as a volunteer staffing a hunter-angler check station at Camp Roberts on the Central Coast and was later hired as a scientific aid in 2004. Ben worked as a scientific aid in three CDFW regions – the North Central Region, the Marine Region and the Central Region – before landing a permanent position with CDFW in 2007 as a reservoir fisheries biologist in Riverside County. He rejoined CDFW’s North Central Region in his current capacity in 2012. … ”
Continue reading from the Department of Fish and Wildlife here: Featured CDFW scientist: Ben Ewing
DWR Environmental Scientist Veronica Wunderlich discusses her work with reptiles and amphibians
“Veronica Wunderlich is a Department of Water Resources (DWR) senior environmental scientist with a focus in herpetology – the study of reptiles and amphibians. Veronica recently spoke on DWR’s Water Wednesdays live educational series –view her talk on DWR’s YouTube channel. DWR will also replay her talk on July 22. Below, Veronica discusses how she got started in herpetology –she even had snakes as pets as a kid, her current work, and how to translate a passion and interest in wildlife into a career – “If you really love the creatures you work with, you will never regret working with them.” … ”
Continue reading at the Department of Water Resources here: DWR Environmental Scientist Veronica Wunderlich discusses her work with reptiles and amphibians
Three partner-driven projects restoring polluted California habitats
“NOAA invests in the environment—and communities. We provide scientific expertise, and funding from pollution settlements, to partners restoring habitat impacted by oil spills and hazardous waste releases. In California, we are partnering with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and local community organizations in areas where pollution has created extensive impacts to natural resources. These projects are restoring habitat impacted by the M/V Cosco Busan and S.S. Luckenbach oil spills and the Montrose hazardous waste site. We’re able to accomplish more on-the-ground restoration through partnerships like these. We recognize the benefits of collaborating and leverage our technical capabilities and resources. This enables us to be more effective and reach bigger solutions together. … ”
Continue reading at NOAA here: Three partner-driven projects restoring polluted California habitats
Bacterial outbreak forces euthanization of fish at three Southern California hatcheries
“Three California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) fish hatchery facilities in the eastern Sierra and Southern California have been battling a bacterial outbreak that has affected 3.2 million fish. This week, after consultation with fish pathology experts and exhausting all avenues of treatment, CDFW announced that the fish, which are all trout, at the affected facilities must be euthanized in order to stop the spread of the outbreak. The affected facilities – Mojave River Hatchery, Black Rock Hatchery and Fish Springs Hatchery – usually provide fish for stocking waterways in CDFW’s South Coast Region and Inland Deserts Region. The euthanization of all the fish at these facilities will have a profound effect on CDFW’s ability to stock fish for anglers in those regions in the near future. … ”
Read more from the Department of Fish and Wildlife here: Bacterial outbreak forces euthanization of fish at three Southern California hatcheries
Scientists predict dramatic increase in flooding, drought in California
“California may see a 54 percent increase in rainfall variability by the end of this century, according to new research from the lab of Assistant Professor Da Yang, a 2019 Packard Fellow and atmospheric scientist with the University of California, Davis. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Yang and his co-authors predict the entire West Coast will experience greater month-to-month fluctuations in extremely dry and wet weather, especially in California. The lead author is Wenyu Zhou, a postdoctoral researcher in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where Yang has a dual appointment. … ”
Read more from Science Daily here: Scientists predict dramatic increase in flooding, drought in California
Accurate weather forecasts 28 days out
“Hey, Google, what’s the weather? We have become comfortable with the idea that we can make decisions based on accurate weather forecasts for the next three, five or seven days. Families plan cookouts for the upcoming weekend. Citrus farmers protect orange trees if a freeze is coming. Emergency managers evacuate towns that will be downwind of wildfires. Communities along rivers prepare sandbags to line homes and businesses if heavy rain looms. But all kinds of decisions could benefit from accurate prediction that stretched as far as three or four weeks out. … ”
Continue reading at Scientific American here: Accurate weather forecasts 28 days out
Freshwater biodiversity in freefall: An emergency recovery plan to slow the decline
“The crisis of freshwater biodiversity loss warrants an emergency intervention. Virtually all ecosystems are experiencing declines in biodiversity due to human activities and climate change, but none have been hit as hard as freshwater habitats. While freshwater systems harbor a trove of diversity, including one-third of all known vertebrate species, freshwater losses have received little notice, despite the fact that an estimated 30% of natural freshwater ecosystems have disappeared since 1970. The impending review and update of several important international agreements on conservation – including the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – has prompted freshwater scientists from around the world to propose a series of actions to address threats to freshwater ecosystems. Their recent publication in the journal BioSicence provides an Emergency Recovery Plan to “bend the curve” of steep freshwater biodiversity loss by suggesting ways to incorporate freshwater-specific conservation objectives into these existing frameworks (Tickner et al. 2020). ... ”
Continue reading at FishBio here: Freshwater Biodiversity in Freefall: An Emergency Recovery Plan to Slow the Decline
Improving coastal restoration by temporarily imitating nature
“Coastal ecosystems are in rapid decline around the world. Restoring them is very expensive and is often unsuccessful. But an international team of researchers discovered a way of increasing restoration success of salt marshes and seagrass meadows, using biodegradable mats.Their findings will be published in Nature Communications on 22 July. Coastal ecosystems are very important.They provide a habitat for many plant and animal species, capture CO2, and protect the land from storm waves. Researchers from Radboud University, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Bureau Waardenburg, Wageningen University & Research and the University of Groningen found that biodegradable mats made with the by-products of potato processing can help with the restoration of seagrass meadows, salt marshes and other coastal ecosystems. ... ”
Continue reading at Phys Org here: Improving coastal restoration by temporarily imitating nature
NEW RESEARCH PAPERS
Freezing level forecast error can consume reservoir flood control storage: Potentials for Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar Reservoirs in California
“CW3E hydrologist, Edwin Sumargo, CW3E researchers, F. Martin Ralph, Forest Cannon and Brian Henn (CW3E alumnus) published a paper in Water Resources Research, titled “Freezing Level Forecast Error Can Consume Reservoir Flood Control Storage: Potentials for Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar Reservoirs in California” (Sumargo et al., 2020). As part of CW3E’s 2019-2024 Strategic Plan to support Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations, CW3E researches the impacts of atmospheric rivers (ARs) on water management and public safety and to improve the prediction capability. In particular, this study assesses the sensitivities reservoirs in the Yuba-Feather watershed, Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar reservoirs, to freezing-level (ZFL) forecast uncertainty. Specifically, it quantifies what percentages of the two reservoirs’ flood pools would be consumed by the prescribed ZFL forecast error, with varying ZFL altitudes and precipitation event magnitudes. This study offers a “guide curve” on the reservoir sensitivity to ZFL forecast uncertainty for reservoir operations in the Yuba-Feather watershed. Ultimately, this work supports the ongoing collaborations involving CW3E, Yuba Water Agency, California Department of Water Resources, NOAA, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. … ”
Continue reading at the Center for Weather and Water Extremes here: Freezing level forecast error can consume reservoir flood control storage: Potentials for Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar Reservoirs in California
Floods due to atmospheric rivers along the U.S. West Coast: The role of antecedent soil moisture in a warming climate
“Graduate student and now UCLA post-doc, Qian Cao, with her advisor, Professor Dennis Lettenmaier and his group, collaborated with CW3E director F. Martin Ralph, and CW3E researchers Alexander Gershunov and Tamara Shulgina on a recently published a paper in the Journal of Hydrometeorology titled “Floods due to atmospheric rivers along the U.S. West Coast: The role of antecedent soil moisture in a warming climate” (Cao et al., 2020). The research aligns with the Monitoring and Projections of Climate Variability and Change Priority Area within CW3E’s 2019-2024 Strategic Plan because it examines atmospheric rivers roles in flooding along the U.S. West Coast. ... ”
Read more from the Center for Weather & Water Extremes here: Floods due to atmospheric rivers along the U.S. West Coast
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT: Draft Report: The Science of Non-native Species in a Dynamic Delta
From the Delta Independent Science Board:
The Delta Independent Science Board (Delta ISB), which provides scientific oversight of programs that support adaptive management, invites your feedback on its draft report, “The Science of Non-native Species in a Dynamic Delta.” The purpose of this report is to assess the state, quality, and potential usefulness of scientific information that could help agencies understand and manage the threats and consequences of non-native plant and animal species in Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta lands and waters.
Written public comments are preferred and should be sent to disb@deltacouncil.ca.gov by 5:00 PM on Monday, August 24, 2020. Those received will be made available electronically or upon request on the Delta ISB’s public correspondence web page. Oral comments on this draft report can be presented to the Delta ISB at its upcoming August 13-14 meeting.
View the draft report on deltacouncil.ca.gov.
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Maven’s XKCD Comic Pick of the Week: COVID risk chart
Featured image credit: Created wetlands, photo by Bruce Barnett
About Science News and Reports: This weekly feature, posted every Thursday, is a collection of the latest scientific research and reports with a focus on relevant issues to the Delta and to California water, although other issues such as climate change are sometimes included. Do you have an item to be included here? Submissions of relevant research and other materials is welcome. Email Maven
